BHP faces more coal strikes in NSW

BHP Billiton
faces rolling stoppages at a strategic NSW coal terminal on top of renewed industrial action at its export mines in Queensland, with unions blaming a new adversarial approach from the miner.

Workers at the Port Kembla Coal Terminal are due to return to work today after a seven-day strike over deadlocked talks on a new workplace agreement and have given notice of a 48-hour strike starting tomorrow.

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union has also given notice of three strikes in coming weeks, which might force temporary production halts or slow-downs at mines in NSW’s southern and western coalfields. Port Kembla coal terminal management has offered annual pay rises of 4.3 per cent. But management has criticised the union for seeking to negotiate a new workplace deal that covers middle management such as accountants and engineers in what is being seen as a broader battle over union influence in the workplace.

A senior CFMEU official, Bob Timbs, argued yesterday that the union was only seeking to cover employees it already represented.

The terminal is operated by a group of major coal producers – BHP Billiton, Xstrata,
Gujarat NRE
,
Centennial Coal
and Peabody Energy – and a full shutdown could force a temporary production halt. In Queensland, the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance warned workers at its Norwich Park mine yesterday that their jobs were at risk if they ­continued to pursue demands on the enterprise agreement and went ahead with a seven-day strike endorsed overwhelmingly by membership in four mass meetings last week.

The Australian Financial Review revealed yesterday BHP said the Norwich Park operation, one of the seven mines the new enterprise agreement would cover, faced closure if industrial action continued.

But Queensland CFMEU president Steve Smyth said the meeting was a strategic move to send a veiled threat to the 3500 workers covered under the agreement that 300 union members at Norwich Park could risk their jobs.

Mr Smyth said the company was expanding its mines throughout the Bowen Basin and employed more than 500 via labour hire, suggesting there was little real threat to jobs. In the past, the company had always consulted with union representatives over planned restructures but the unions were not told the mine faced closure, Mr Smyth said.

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“This is not the BHP of old that would sit down with us and work with us as a major stakeholder in the coal industry," he said. “The coal industry is heavily unionised, has been so for 40 years, and yet the new BHP want to shut us out from discussions and use a tactic of divide and conquer."